The Russian Revolution: when workers took power. Book launch

Join us for the launch of our new book “The Russian Revolution: when workers took power” with author Paul Vernadsky.

The evening with include talks about the events and lessons of 1917, as well as film showings and art. There will also be food and time to socialise.

The 1917 Russian revolution was the greatest event in political history so far – the first time working class people took political power and held it for a decade. Yet the real history is buried under myths.

Many Western accounts portray 1917 as a mutiny of peasant soldiers leading to a coup d’état, led by a small group of fanatics who established a Stalinist totalitarian state. Worse, the mirror image of 1917 became the foundation myth of the Stalinist state: the 1917 revolution was used both in Russia and across the world by ‘Communist’ parties to glorify the terrible Stalinist regime that endured after workers’ self-rule was extinguished in the twenties. The liberatory, working class essence of the original revolution was lost.

We think that both the Stalinist propaganda and the anti-Communist Western historians are wrong. Workers’ Liberty thinks that the Russian Revolution was a revolution for freedom: and that it still has a lot to teach activists who want to make a better world.

Books will be available to buy for a discounted amount at the event or can be pre-ordered online here.